BEIJING/HONG KONG, Feb 28 (Reuters) - China granted nearly
$3 billion in fresh quotas to licensed overseas institutional
investors in February, data released on Friday by the State
Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed.
A sum of $900 million was issued under the
dollar-denominated Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor
(QFII) programme, with 12.6 billion yuan ($2.06 billion) issued
under the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor
(RQFII) programme.
This takes the total quotas issued under the QFII programme
to $52.3 billion as of Feb. 28 from $51.4 billion at the end of
December, and to 180.4 billion yuan ($29.44 billion) from 167.8
billion yuan under the RQFII programme, according to SAFE data.
Fidelity and Goldman Sachs Asset Management each received an
additional $100 million in QFII quotas. They now have $400
million and $600 million in total, respectively.
CSOP Asset Management, which in January announced the launch
of the first RQFII exchange-traded fund (ETF) listed in London,
received 1 billion yuan in fresh RQFII quotas in February. Its
total allotment is the largest in the scheme and now stands at
35.1 billion yuan.
Institutional investors need to apply for a licence from the
securities regulator to seek investment quotas from the foreign
exchange regulator.
According to data released on Feb. 17, the Monetary
Authority of Macau was among seven new QFII licences the China
Securities Regulatory Commission granted in January, raising the
total to 258.
Five RQFII licenses were issued in January, bringing the
total to 48.